Lack of knowledge about cloud potentially hindering uptake

8 Jun 201156 Views

While more than 60pc of Irish organisations cited cost savings as a major incentive for adopting cloud computing, companies are slow to make the move because of anxiety at management level around what the cloud really is, a survey suggests.

The survey, ‘State of the Cloud’, by Seefin Data Management on behalf of CloudArena, revealed that a major hurdle for companies considering moving to the cloud is having to allay the fears of their colleagues and staff and convincing them of the benefits of a cloud-based business.

Comments from respondents included issues around staff not knowing how the cloud works, and a fear of not being sufficiently technically savvy.

Jennifer Boyle of Seefin Data Management and director of CloudArena said of the findings: “We have long been aware of the fact that there is anxiety out there around data protection and security within the cloud; however, it was hugely surprising to see that a major hurdle for a lot of businesses was trying to relay the benefits of cloud to their staff and, in some cases, to management.”

This survey, which targeted people including IT professionals, business owners and managers, was issued on behalf of the CloudArena team, host of the second event in the 2011 Cloud Trilogy on Thursday, 16 June, at the National College of Ireland.

The second part of the trilogy will include speakers from IBM, Microsoft and Fujitsu, who will focus on CRM and relevant themes for businesses, including social media, collaboration across the business, analytics to assess the customer experience and the open-source opportunities to configure your specific CRM solution.

Photo, from left: Dave Feenan, business development manager, Swiss Post Solutions; Dr Phillip Matthews, president National College of Ireland (NCI); and Richie Bowden, director, RB Consulting